Talks

Transcript:

Title: The Truth Behind the Parables

Date: May 14, 1980

I’d like to read to you from “The Art of Being,” by Wilferd A. Peterson.

The art of being is the assumption that you may possess this very minute, those qualities of spirit and attitudes of mind that make for radiant living. It is being great now, being forgiving now, being tolerant now, being happy now, instead of postponing positive and constructive living to some vague and indefinite future.

It is developing an awareness of the infinite possibilities in each magic moment. It is coming into a full realization that the master voice, the secret of victorious being, when he declared that the Kingdom of God is not afar off, but that it is within you now.

I’d like to read to you from St. Matthew, Chapter 13, beginning with Verse 1.

• • 1. The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
    2. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
    3. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
    4. And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
    5. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
    6. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
    7. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
    8. But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
    9. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
    10. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
    11. He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
    12. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
    13. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
    14. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
    15. For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
    16. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
    17. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

I want to speak to you this morning about the truth behind the parables. Everything, practically in the world starts with a seed. We even seed the clouds in order to get rain. So we have to start with the seed as the germ of all life. And that seed is a mystery indeed because it is a seed with a coating on the outside of it, a skin, a cloak if you will. But inside of it is contained the essence of that which the seed will one day develop into.

I remember when I was a child and went to Sunday school, it was a Roman Catholic Church and one of the first questions, if not the first, which was asked of us “What is a mystery?” And the answer to that was given as “A mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand.”

Now that is true only in part because as we put our feet upon the spiritual path and progress, as we open our hearts, our minds, our souls to God and give ourselves to Him in full measure, the day comes when the mysteries are revealed to us, when we’re lifted up into the consciousness of God, when we have so dedicated ourselves, surrendered ourselves and reached out for God to the point where with every part of our being there is nothing for us but the desire for union with Him, then He will lift us up and He will show us all of the truth behind the mystery.

And the tremendous thing about it is that, that truth is contained within ourselves, every single one of us. Just think that even the cross of our own body, grows out of a seed. What a wonderful thought that is. Just as a seed is planted in the ground, and it must be fertilized, it must be watered, some seeds are planted in ground that is not good, and they fall by the wayside. Others are planted among thorns, and they bring forth thistles.

And this is telling us the story of what each particular soul goes through, as he starts out on his road to God, because not all souls are fully opened yet. Some of them are in the beginning grades of school, and so, they take, they choose whatever religion. Some of them, in the beginning, choose no religion at all. They label themselves as atheists. But when they do start to put their feet on the spiritual path, they choose that religion which their child‑like minds are able to comprehend, and to receive. But God is there; because He is equally present everywhere. And as their consciousness grows, just as a seed grows, so also the mysteries are revealed to them. And gradually, more and more facets of the diamond are revealed.

Now, many people go out and teach when they’ve had a few revelations. Maybe they’ve had a few visions. Maybe they’ve had a few experiences. Maybe they’ve been lifted up into what is called the rapture. But that is only the highest human experience. It is not something which you should dwell in. You should go through that, discard it, refuse it, if you will. And go on, and go through the full crucifixion. Go through the purgatory, or the purging, and then, eventually you will enter the kingdom of heaven within your own being. And you will get the bliss of God, the eternal bliss; that which doesn’t just come and go as the rapture does, but the eternal bliss of God.

I know this very well, because I know how drastically I was tempted a couple of times to enter into that, and to be absorbed by it. And a couple of times, it really got to me. But I went through it. I went to the other side. For some reason, I had to do that. And I knew that I had to do this, that there was more to be learned, more to be experienced.

This idea of vicarious atonement, given to mankind by one man who lived 2,000 years ago, is totally without foundation. Because it is the Christ in you, the savior within you, who atones for the sins which you individually commit. And you are committed to pay the price for those sins of separation from God.

Now, as I’ve said before, there’s only one sin, and that is this idea of separation from God, because contained within that one sin are all the rest of the sins that we think of in the universe. Because if we did not have this idea of separation, then certainly, we wouldn’t feel that we were doing anything wrong because we would be lifted up. We would be absorbed in the bliss, and the joy, and the happiness, and the totality, the fullness of God. And it’s beautiful.

Now, after we are born, and that birth starts with the beginning of a seed. After we are born, then comes this baptism. And so in order to express what happens within man, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then we are baptized with water. And we know that there are religious sects who actually dip their people into water, either into a stream, a lake, or a tub, or whatever. And recently, when we were hunting for a church, we saw a Baptist church out in Mountlake Terrace, and right up in front, they had a big wooden tub. And the real‑estate agent who showed us the tub said that that was the hot tub. The hot tub—that’s where they douse them in. And that’s supposed to cleanse them of their sin, but it doesn’t, you see. That is just water. There must come further the baptism of fire. That is where the kundalini or the serpent force starts to rise in the spine and permeates the whole body, the whole being.

And then we are reminded of Moses and the burning bush. Don’t you see how all of these mysteries, these parables relate to something that actually happens within you as human beings. And it speaks of Moses and the burning bush, and your body is referred to as the tree and as the bush. And so that is what it is speaking about when you start to have these higher spiritual experiences and then it speaks to the baptism of blood. Now that is very little known in the West.

They say, off the top of their heads, “Have you been washed in the blood of Christ?” And they haven’t the faintest idea of what they mean by it. They think that because you accept Jesus Christ, the man who lived 2,000 years ago as your personal savior that you are washed clean in the blood which he personally shed for you on his own cross which they considered to be wooden 2,000 years ago and this is not true. It is not true. The baptism of blood is a totally different thing. It is an inner experience where your whole circulatory system is changed from your physical body to the astral body. And so your consciousness is released from this physical body and then it is transferred into the astral or the electrical body. And when this happens, you feel the pain of this change that takes place within yourself.

And I have told you about the wife of the minister who said to me once (she was a Pentecostal minister’s wife) and she said to me, “Have you been washed in the blood of Christ?” And I said to her, “What should have happened to me if I had been?” And it stopped her cold. She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “You asked me if I had the experience of being washed in the blood of Christ. Obviously, something should have happened to me. What should have happened to me? Explain it to me. Describe it to me.” And she couldn’t do it. She said, “Well, I don’t mean that you were washed actually in blood.” I said, “What do you mean?” She couldn’t tell me. So I sat her down and told her for two hours because I went through it. I went through it in India. I went through the hell of it. I went through the pain of it and believe me, it was not easy.

And every time one circulatory tract was completed, then the navel automatically depressed and that was very painful. And I said to God, “Will it be long yet?” I was tied, hand and foot in the form of a cross on a bed. And He said, “No, not much longer now.” And I was thrashing from side to side, you see, so many cubits this way and so many cubits that way as it says in Revelation, as this transition takes place within yourself. And it was really an experience. I could hear this blood gurgling inside. And that is like the wine of the spirit.

You see, they speak of the marriage at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine and his mother at this marriage said, “They have no wine.” And he said to his mother, Woman, my hour has not yet come. So she instructed the servants to bring six jugfuls of water to him. And again, we have the six spinal centers involved in this. And she said to do as he bid you. And the water was changed into the wine of the Spirit and the marriage took place between the soul and God, but yet, he did this in advance as an indication, as a gesture of what was going to come. And then one of the guests there said that usually people serve their good wine first, and then gave the people bad wine afterwards because they were so drunk with the good wine that they didn’t realize the difference. But you, he said, have given us the good wine. So, this is another parable and this is the true meaning of it when the soul goes through these tremendous experiences.

Then we have another one. Let’s take John the Baptist. He came before the Christ and he represents intuition, the still, small voice of God that really, comes and goes in the beginning. And if you will listen to it, it gets stronger and stronger and stronger, but still, it is merely an intuitive voice. And he said that he came before, but that he was not worthy of the one who would come after him. And that is the Christ who comes, the total stream of Christ consciousness which comes into the individual’s being and flows through just like a stream of water, constantly.

And what happened to John the Baptist? You see, this story that’s told about his coming and teaching the people through intuition is really very, very deep seated. And it tells in the end that his head was cut off and Herodias, the wife of Herod had been his brother’s wife, Philip’s wife, and it was wrong. And so John the Baptist told Herodias that it was wrong for her to be married to her husband’s brother. And still, she went ahead and lived with him, so she hated John the Baptist for this. She wanted to kill him but she didn’t know how she would go about it. So one day, they were having a celebration, a birthday, and Herodias’ daughter, Salome, was brought before the king and made to dance. She was very beautiful and she appealed to him. He lusted after her. He desired her to the degree that he said, ask anything of me, and I will give it unto you, ask anything. So she went to her mother and she asked her mother what it was that she should ask him for. And her mother said, ask him for the head of John the Baptist to be brought on a platter. And so, much as he regretted it, he ordered this done.

Now, what does that mean? It means that the sex urge became so great that the voice of intuition is cut off. It is wasted. And you are tempted by this, shall we say, a harlot of the universe within yourself, and that the minute that you waste that seed and it goes to the ground, then you no longer have it in you as strength, as power, and as direction. And that’s the true meaning of the cutting off of the head of John the Baptist.

And you can go on and on and on. Even unto the time when Peter denied knowing the Christ. At the time, he was going on the road to go Golgotha. Three different times he denied knowing him. Why? Because Jesus the savior, the son of man, represents the human ego. Peter represents the truth, and so Peter had to deny the human ego. He had to deny Jesus the man three times as the consciousness was released from each one of the three bodily jars and then lifted up. It died, it descended into hell. And the third day or the day that it was released from the idea or the causal body, then it arose from the dead, appeared to the disciples, gave them the power of the Holy Ghost. Where before he’d been the ghost of the real Self or God, the human ego, the son of man, then he became the Son of God, the Christed one. And so, he was lifted up and it says: He gave the power of the Holy Ghost to his disciples. He ate with them, he supped with them. And then he ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of his Father.

And as I’ve said before, there’s only a nod given to that ascension. But that takes three days or three separate periods of time to go through, just the same as the descension into the hell of your own being or the subconscious takes. And it isn’t until you have gone all the way over the top, beyond duality, till you have died fully, not only the ego of the five senses, but the ego of the ten subtle qualities of the mind, are you fully one with God, are you fully an enlightened creature.

And that’s why you see the serpents shown on the heads of the Mother Kali and of the god Shiva, because the serpent force or the force of duality has gone up the spine, through the brain, and the Christed one, or Krishna as they call the Christ, has taken over the kingdom. It’s tremendous.

But after his death, remember that they broke the legs of the two thieves on either side of the Christ. These are the forces of good and evil. But the legs of the Christ they did not break. That’s because the others were these dual forces. They were just symbolic of this good and evil force, the positive and negative within every man. And they couldn’t last after the Christ took over the kingdom.

There’s the arising from the dead. Now again, Hades means the place of darkness, of ignorance. And when you go through these tremendous experiences, when you have the courage to lay your life at the feet of God, then you arise from the death of ignorance and of darkness. And where before you had the parables, now you have the truth behind the mysteries. And having paid the full price for it, there isn’t anybody on Earth could dissuade you that you do not have the price. You have given your life in truth for Christ. It’s just not a gesture of going up in front of an altar and saying, “I accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior.”

It is in fact that price must be paid, because it even says so in this chapter. “For whosoever hath to Him shall be given and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not, from Him shall be taken away even that which he hath. Therefore, speak I to them in parables because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not. Neither do they understand.”

They are still in a state of darkness and ignorance. There are veils of darkness before their consciousness. And then it talks about the prophecy of Esaias being filled by saying, “By hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.”

I don’t know how many times I have talked to people of the Orthodox faith, of the Pentecostal faith, and I can’t get through to them at all. And they think I am crazy when I tell them the truth that I have experienced. And they label me, as I have told you before, an angel of Satan. They have burned me in effigy. And they call this Christianity. And they have not even seen me, many of them. Many of them don’t know what I teach. And they think I’m teaching a heathen religion. It’s like the early Gnostics who really had the truth, but were many of them killed because they were teaching the truth behind the parables.

But it is high time that man came into the knowledge of who and what he is in God. And that this kingdom, this treasure is within himself and he has access to it, that God lives inside of him, that Jesus, the son of man, is his human self and that the Christed one, Jesus, the Son of God, is his spiritual self. And that in order to come into the fullness of his being, to become one whole person, to become master of himself, he must go through that which is necessary in order to attain it. There can be no cheating. And when you cheat, as I have said many times before, you cheat only yourself.

It is a tremendous thing to be taught the truth. It is a tremendous thing to know that you have a whole universe inside of yourself; that you have the sun which expresses the Son of God within you, right within your forehead; that you have within your solar plexus the moon, which is your second brain or your psychic center; that you have the stars in your spinal center, and you have the candlesticks there, and as your consciousness rises and grows in God, that these spinal centers light up like a Christmas tree.

And then finally, the supreme moment when you have had the courage to go over the top, to give yourself totally to God that the thousand-petalled lotus of the brain opens up. And your whole being is flooded with the light that comes from this great light of God, which is your real Self, that one who sits on the throne of your consciousness and the altar of your heart. Your heart opens up then, not just to a few, but to the whole world. And each man you count as your child in God.

And yet you know beyond all question of a doubt that you of yourself are nothing, but if you are something, that you are merely the child and the servant of God and of everyone you meet. This is the real truth. And until you know that, until you’re willing to give up the constant pleasures of the senses and spend your time in meditation, in reading spiritual books, in doing the techniques which you’ve been taught to practice, you will never become what you can become. You will become brilliant. You will become affluent. Not perhaps in the things of the world, but what are they worth? They, as it says in here, are eaten up by moths, they rust, they disintegrate, and they return into dust. The only thing you can take with you is what you build within yourselves, within yourselves, the things of the spirit.

And the more advancements you make in this incarnation, the less you’re going to have to do that is distasteful in the next and the closer you get to realizing the kingdom of heaven. It says, and I have repeated it over and over again, that if we will seek God first, every other thing that we need, that we want, that we desire, will be added unto us. And instead, we pray to Him for things. Instead of going to Him first and asking Him for union with Himself, we ask for things. Just sit quietly, relax, take a deep breath, and let everything go. And then put your mind upon Him alone. Don’t think of your illness, don’t think of your troubles, how much money you need, what problem you have here and there and the other place, but think only of Him and all else shall be added unto you.

I’ve told you over and over again I am the living example of that. I live on God’s bounty alone, on His charity, and yet my coffers are never empty. And I give and I give, and I do and I do, and I love the giving and the doing. And yet He has to make it possible for me to do so, but it comes, it comes. Why? Because I did what it said. I put Him first and I loved Him more than I loved my little self. And I gave myself in full measure even unto death for Him, because I loved Him.

And you ask how many Christians today if they are willing to do that, and you won’t find all that many takers. They’re afraid. And yet I stand before you fully alive, more alive than I’ve ever been in my life, with more energy. I work day and night, seven days a week. And the body gets tired, it gets worn out. And sometimes I get so tired, this body does, that I can scarcely make myself do what God puts before me to do, and still I keep on doing it. And pretty soon, like yesterday, I was totally depleted. I have been for a few days. All of a sudden, I got the most tremendous burst of energy and it was like I was reborn, a new person.

And again, I accomplished a great deal of work. But you see, I don’t ask Him, “Lord, do this for me. Lord, do that for me. Lord, give me this. Lord, give me that.” I forget to ask Him to do anything for me and that is the God’s truth and He knows it. And I make up my mind, “Well, I’m going to keep a few days off and just rest and not take telephone calls as they come in. Just keep myself out of things.”

The first thing I know, something comes over my recorder call and the hand automatically goes to the telephone and picks it up, because somebody’s in trouble. I can’t always do that, and I’m not always directed to do that. And so if I don’t do what the individual expects me to, it is because my Boss says that they have to be on their own at this present time; because I will not go against anything that He tells me. He is the president of the universe and I listen to Him alone. And I don’t care if everybody else in the world denies me. If they all spit upon me, no matter what they do to me, still my love is for Him, my devotion is for Him, my service is for Him, and I will do what He says, if I die a second death or a third death this time, because I’ve already put this first one in

I tell you these truths because I want you to know what’s happening inside of you. We have between here and a couple of other places, twelve people going through spiritual experiences now such as I described. And if someone wasn’t around to tell them what it was all about, they are in trouble. I know because I’ve had people who have tried every place to get help, as I did myself at one point when I came back to America from India. And I was going through this false state of ecstasy and many experiences. And I went to a Swami in New York hoping to get help because I had heard that he’d had been in the Himalayas for 20 years and I thought, “Well, surely he must know something about what’s going on.” And he knew nothing. He had been running a printing press if you please. And I told him about some of my experiences, and he said, “Oh, none of our Swamis have those experiences.” He said they’re all very brilliant men. I said, “Brilliance is not necessarily a sign of God‑realization, Swamiji.” My husband was horrified. And I gave the man five dollars for his time and walked out, and I went on my own.

And there were times when I was in New York, and people were coming, students, and I was in this strange experience. I was the Divine Mother at one time, and another, God was having me take the part of the harlot of the universe. And I remember one fella came in and here I was sitting in half Lotus posture going back and forth, back and forth like this because I was forced to do this. This is what my body wanted to do at that time because of the loosening of the atomic structure. And he says, “Mother, what are you doing?” I said, “Well, I’m rocking on my cross, of course. What do you think?”

Strange things. You dance. You sing, because song controls the elements of your body. You place a glass on a table, and you play an instrument, or you sing very loudly, and you can shatter that glass without it’s even being touched. So, we know that sound controls the elements and it does in our own bodies and so does the movement, the loosening part. And I was put through all of the Hindu techniques of yoga, physically. And I’ve never done one of them except the meditative posture in all of my life this time. Yet, it seems the memory from another lifetime came into being and whatever was necessary was done. That is how God arranges it. You give yourself to Him; you don’t have to worry about what you know or what you’re going to do. Keep your mind on Him, and He will do the work.

I remember one; he was supposed to be the greatest Hatha Yogi in all of India when I was there ten years ago. And I think I’ve told you about it when I knelt at his feet, and he put his hands on my head. And he went, “Wow!” He laughed, he cried, he shouted. I thought he’d gone mad. I wondered who this mad man was that I’d come before. And he couldn’t speak English, and he kept saying “Beta, Beta.” And I said to the interpreter, “What’s the matter with him?” And he said, “Well, he says that you were his chief chela incarnations ago. And he calls you Beta, his son, his spiritual son.” I said, “But I’m a woman.” He said, “He’s paying you the greatest honor. He remembers you as his son. And he said he has followed your life ever since you were born. And he has called you to India. And he said he is so overjoyed to see you.”

Well, strangely enough, before I went to India, before I’d ever heard of him, it was given to me that I would meet a great Hatha Yogi. And so, the second time I met him; he gave me his mantle, that was his spiritual inheritance. He gave me all of his powers, and he joined his soul to mine. None of which I wanted and none of which I asked for, but I had them. I also had whatever karma went with it. And it was not a pleasant experience. But through the grace of God and the direction of Swami Ashokananda, I kept my mind off of him and the things that were happening. I put it on God, and it disappeared to the point where I could write him again.

I was notified of his death, and by all intents and purposes according to spiritual law, I should have gone back and taken charge of the ashram. All of this would have been my spiritual inheritance. I would have been the guru of his disciples, and I wanted no part of it because I already had a straight pipeline between God and myself. And when he did this to me, he really threw me into something, and I didn’t like it.

I want God alone. God alone. I don’t need to have my human ego satisfied in that way. All I want is that God’s will be done. All I want is to help you to come to that point when you too will want to do only that which God directs you to do, when you want Him so badly, when your love for Him is so great that you will be willing to give up everything, sit at His feet, implore Him to put you through whatever is necessary in order that you might find your union with Him.

He is so tremendous, this God who dwells within us. He is the bliss, the power, the intelligence, the love, the beauty, the everything‑ness that we are looking for in all of these outside things and never in this world will we find them. And if you put your feet on the path, and then you go back, you lose your light and many times it takes you centuries to get it back again, to get to where you were. And you lose the opportunity of having your guru, that one who has gone all the way to God and who alone is able to help you through all of the dark lanes that will take you to your final God‑realization, where you will be lifted up and you will be held in the arms of God, in His eternal bliss forevermore.

Transcript:

DATE: 19790923

TITLE: WORK IS LOVE MADE VISIBLE

I’d like to read to you this morning a little story about the Buddha. It’s entitled, “The Soul Collection.”

Every boy has a hobby. The Dalai Lama was no exception. Since he was only allowed to concern himself with spiritual matters, he collected soul impressions and kept them in a large album. Generally, people regarded their souls in one of five ways: above the head, like a halo; in the breast, like a babe yearning; enveloping the body like a shroud, moving up and down the spine like an electrical charge, and in the pit of the stomach.

There were exceptions, which the Dalai Lama kept under a separate category as “freak souls:” souls in the palms of the hands, souls between the eyes, souls like wings on the back, souls departed from the body on a journey of their own, et cetera.

Some few cards were returned, with the notation: “no soul,” or, “I have no soul that I know of.” These, the Dalai Lama listed in a section called “The Innocents.”

For each soul, the Dalai Lama also did a drawing in his cosmic coloring book. He drew his own soul as a kite. Here are a few of the soul impressions that inspired the most beautiful drawings:

“My soul is a cottage by a river, waiting for me.” (and that is by Henry Jacob.) [?]

“My soul is like the inside of a flame.” (By Alitha [?] Habibi.)

“I am still pursuing my soul with a spear.” (Mr. Curly of New Guinea.)

“My soul is the image I have of myself as I most perfectly wish myself to be – an old man, very lean, very clear-eyed, with an expression of bemused sadness that recognizes life is a tragedy, yet finds it amusing and good. My soul is free, homeless, owns nothing, and is owned by nobody. All he carries with him is a bedroll, a flute, a notebook and a pen. Though extremely kind, my soul is prepared to defend himself. He is a jack-of-all-trades, a musician and a storyteller. When he has traveled many miles, he will lie down alone in a high valley and go to sleep.” (And that was by Alan Dienstag.)

“Immutable light.” (by Richard Roberts.)

“I’ve kissed my soul off to the cosmos.” (by [?] Dibarabar. [?])

These soul impressions are still being collected through personal contacts, and correspondence with people great and small throughout the world. Many are an answer to a simple form letter that says,

Dear Sir or Madam or Miss, it would please me very much if you could take time off from your busy life to answer the following question on the line below and return the self-addressed card to me. The question is this: “How do you see your soul?”

The album with the thousands of answers, and the coloring book that accompanies it, will be collectors’ items if ever released by the Dalai Lama from his refuge in India. Those who have answered the card may not realize with whom they are corresponding since the receiving address is a post office box in Burma, and the signature is simply, “An interested boy.”

I think that is delightful.

And I want to read to you from The Prophet:

Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.

And he answered, saying:

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

Our Bible reading this morning is from St. Matthew, Chapter 20 beginning with Verse 1:

1 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.

2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.

5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.

6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.

9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.

11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,

12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?

14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

The subject of my sermon this morning is “Work Is Love Made Visible.” This is a wonderful chapter. There are many people in the world that feel just exactly the way that the workers who started in the beginning feel. I have had some examples of that with the people that I have worked with throughout the years, because newer people who have come have been made lay ministers and those who have been with me sometimes for twenty and thirty years have not.

There are reasons for everything, as I have said many times. Each one comes in his own state of consciousness, in his own particular development in the spiritual world. And the Guru, the Master Teacher, does exactly what God directs. In fact, he or she does not do as God directs, but rather it is God in that fully developed spiritual form which does all things through the form which He has made. And so everything happens in accordance with His will.

Now, we all know that there are many ways of keeping idle, and one of them is to keep very busy. You can busy yourself with things that don’t amount to anything and don’t get you any place at all, like you’ve never seen before, as all of you know. And why do you do that? You do that to avoid the things that you know you should be doing, the things that you know that should be gotten out of the way. And we are all, at one time or another, guilty of that procrastination, and it is procrastination of the first order. But it is work. We tell ourselves we work so hard, we have this to do, we have that to do, and we are constantly putting off the very thing that is the most important of all, that which will free us so that we will have time to meditate, to contemplate upon God.

Now everything in the world is God’s work. There’s no question of a doubt about it. We have talked about the busy people, but there are those who are just plain idle because they’re just plain lazy. They don’t want to do anything. They wander all over the face of the earth and they get no place fast. They always have a good reason why they’re doing this. And they serve here and they serve there, perhaps, a little, but chiefly they just plain want to enjoy themselves. And so many of these people, instead of earning their way and working so that they may demonstrate that work is love made visible, will go to one house after another and beg. This is certainly true of many of the holy men in India.

I was especially interested and thrilled to be at Swami Ashokananda’s ashram. This was a man who wanted to earn his own way. So, he grew a fruit orchard, and he would keep himself in money through harvesting the crops and selling them wherever he could. I remember that once I tried to pay him respect, because he was such a tremendous Godman, and so I brought him fruit. He said he didn’t eat it. I tried to give him money. He said he didn’t need it. And so I tried every way I knew how to give this man something in the material way to show him how great my love and respect was for him. I wasn’t successful, not at the ashram, not at any of the places where I saw him.

So after I spent a few weeks with him in the Himalayas, I noticed that every morning he sat under the tree writing letters, and sometimes some of us would join him. And I have a picture of him with a cloth over his head, writing away, or just sitting, and it’s just simply beautiful, the peace that was there. And every now and then he’d stop himself in his writings and he would talk to us. And he would answer all of the letters that came in by hand.

Now, this was done by a man who had never been in a school in his life. He is the one who ran away from home, and into the jungle, in order that he would be able to meditate upon God, when he was only nine years old, so school had never seen him at all. So he meditated in the Himalayas for 34, 36 years (I’ve forgotten which it was) and he came out, went into the Ramakrishna Order and they put some clothes on his body, because he was stark naked, and tried to teach this man something about the way of God. And it is said that the one that he finally took as his guru, in the human sense, made the statement that he had nothing to teach him, that actually he was his Guru.

Anyway, all of this went on. But I noticed that he had this letterhead, with the name of the ashram on it and everything. So I “borrowed” one of those, shall we say, with an envelope that went with it, one day, and thought that when I got back to New Delhi I would send him some correspondence paper, which I did. I went to the printer and I left him also a note in the Swami’s handwriting, which was never returned to me. They said they’d lost it. But I have an idea, because he was so famous and so highly thought of there, that maybe it was preserved as a souvenir. And so I ordered him several boxes of stationery and envelopes and sent it to him.

Well, he couldn’t very well return that, you see, because it was already printed. And I did get a letter acknowledging it, but he said, Wonderful indeed it was,” and so on, but I could feel the helplessness in all of the letter. And his idea was this, I think, as I gathered from his speech, that any time you accepted something from somebody, you owed them a debt.

Now I wouldn’t say that that was true of any holy person, particularly a man of his stature, because for whatever came to him, he gave in such full measure of the spirit within him that there was no possibility of his owing a debt in the sense that I think he was thinking of it. So anyway, God taught both of us a lesson, I guess. But it was fun.

But there are those also who sit, or they keep busy, or whatever, but they are idle in their pursuit of the Spirit. And if God looks down at the marketplace of the world, I’m sure He sees it in a very different way than we see it because we see not much idleness. We see all of this activity going around all the time, and most of the people are working in one way or another. But God sees total idleness with most of the people, from the standpoint that they do not work to find and realize who and what they are in Him. And this is very bad. This is very bad because, you see, all of the goals tie into the one goal which is the realization of your Oneness with God—every single goal, no matter what you do.

I’ve spoken to you many times about goals, and the chief goal should be the realization of God within yourself always. There should be no other main goal whatsoever. But then, as you set yourself the human goals, these goals bring about experiences, both good and bad, which will teach you different things which you need to know. Sometimes they bring about suffering, sometimes very great joy. But they teach you.

This is a school of life that we are in, and we have to work our way through it. We cannot stand like the beggar at the temple gate and just beg alms all of our life, and watch the procession of life go by, and expect to get any place with it, because it will not take us any place but into another incarnation where we have to keep repeating, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, that which we have done before, until we finally learn that we have to make the effort—every effort—to go to God, until we come to that moment when we are ready to relinquish and put all things in His hands. At that moment of total surrender, then God comes in and lifts us up, and He takes us to Himself.

Now, I divide the “us” and “to Himself,” but in truth, as we all know, there’s only One. And it is God playing His play of life, God’s lila, as the Indians call it.

I think that this story that I read out of the Bible today is tremendous. Christ had such a fantastic way of teaching in parables because if you will notice, from what I read,

20 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.

And this is God in each of us, who is trying to stimulate us, to inspire us to seek Him so that we will be one of His harvesters. And we don’t pay any attention to it in the beginning.

2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

Now, this is the second time He went out.

4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.

5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.

6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

Now, you will see that the different times that are mentioned in here where God comes into your consciousness and He picks up the idle, and He tries to inspire them to go out and earn some things of the Spirit: to drink the wine of spirit, to eat the bread of life. And some of them go and they work. But then comes toward the last, and payment is due. And you will remember that here it says,

16. So the last shall be first, and the first last for many be called but few chosen.

And as I have said many times before, the reason that so few are chosen is because they do not make the effort.

Now, many times the ones who come last make a tremendous effort, and because they’re willing to work, God takes them into the kingdom and gives them their payment first.

And this is the way it is with all devotees, as we know. There are those who meditate, who practice the techniques every morning, every night, religiously; who go about serving God every hour of the day. The thought of God is never out of their consciousness—never. And everything they do, they do for Him.

And there are others who work only for gain for themselves, that they might have a beautiful home, fancy clothes, a car, a yacht, be able to travel all over the world. And there are those who work just to survive. There are all types of reasons for working, and in the beginning, man goes through all of these various stages.

As I have said many times before, he cannot help where he is, to a certain degree. He can, to the degree that he has free choice, free will, and whatever he chooses to do he reaps the reward or the punishment thereof. In that way, he can help it. But he comes out from God, and he must go through all of the various grades of school until finally he graduates from college. And then, he gets his doctor’s degree, his master’s degree, and he becomes a researcher of life. He wants to know why he is here, where he came from, what is the purpose of life.

He wants the truth about not only himself, but he wants it about all life, about the universe in which we live in. And so, many take up various sciences in order to satisfy the desire. But when you take up the science of the Christ, which is the exploration of your own soul—if you wish to go the way of the cross, which is your body, and seek that fulfillment through going through the crucifixion or the death of the human ego, and descending into the hell or the subconscious of your own being, facing everything, working it out, paying the price and then ascending into the kingdom of heaven within yourself—it is a very different road, believe me. It is a tough one, no doubt. But the man who says that the way of the cross and the Christ is a very hard road, it requires so much of them, more than they are willing to give, doesn’t ever sit down and realize how much he demands of himself in packing his own burden every day, how much he demands of himself.

If I were to pack the burdens which come across my telephone and through my door, and in every phase of life that I meet, I would not be here, I can assure you. I have such problems come across my desk sometimes that you wouldn’t believe. And I think, “My God.” My first thought is in the human sense: “My God, what am I going to do?” And then the next minute, I say, “My God, I can’t do anything about it. You’re going to have to take over and do it if anything is to be done” because it is so great sometimes that I am, as a human being, helpless in it. So I must give the whole thing to God and let His will work out.

Now, many times we want to protect ourselves. We are constantly doing that. We don’t want people to know this or that or the other thing about us, so we do a total cover-up job, and to some degree that’s necessary in order to be able to live in the world.

I think I told you a long time ago about a play that I saw on television. Or maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was in the theater. But anyhow, it was a story about peoples’ lives when they put on this façade, when they wear the Janus-faced god, with two sides to their faces: one as they really were, and one as they put out to the world. And the other one was the total story of truth.

Now, if you were to tell the truth of what you think, what you feel, how you really are inside, every moment of your life, think what would happen. Think what would happen. What a beautiful cover-up job we do! We really do a beautiful cover-up job. And so, this we do to save our image, our reputation, the reputation of others. We have all sorts of excuses.

Now, I had a girlfriend once who spoke very frankly always, and I used to get on her case once in a while because she hurt peoples’ feelings so terribly. And she said, “Well, I’m just frank. I just say it as it is.” But you can say it as it is and put a little frosting on it, you know, and not hurt the people. So if they can eat the frosting along with the bitter pill that’s underneath it, it isn’t so hard to take. I do it constantly, I know, and I get it constantly, and I know.

Don’t think that I’m free of all of the things that you are because I get them from everybody I work with. So it isn’t all just bowing at Mother’s feet, you know, and giving her gifts, and showing her love and all, like this, because Mother gets all the problems dumped on her shoulders. And every now and then, she gets told where she may go to, in plain language, and all this sort of thing. But you learn to take it in your stride because it is all God doing His thing, and whatever comes to me, I feel that this is His will. So why should I argue with Him?

But when it comes to the last mile—when it’s time for you to pick up your cross and follow the Christ within yourself, to be directed by that Savior, that son of man who is about to sacrifice himself on your own cross in order that you might become the Christed one, the enlightened one—then things change, and you have to surrender yourself to Him totally. And those who are ready, those forces within you go with the Christ to paradise. That’s the good thief on the cross. But those who had been laggards, who have not gotten in and have done the work so that love may be—What is it? “Love is work made manifest—these have a very, very tough time, and they suffer.

And so we wonder, when we look at the lives of some of the saints and see what they have gone through, what is the use of going into it? And we avoid it through fear, we avoid it through lethargy. We just don’t want to get involved because we don’t want to get hurt, we don’t want to pay any prices. We want all the rewards, but none of the punishment, and life is not like that, believe me.

Every thought, every word, every action is written in the book of life. And those on the debit side will bring the reward, and those on the credit side will still have to be paid for because those are the red ink ones. And you have to, at some time or another, in some incarnation or another, face yourself, this human ego, and do whatever is necessary to transform it into the Divine, because that is the sole purpose for which we are put here—the sole purpose.

Every man comes with one religion, and that is to satisfy his needs, his wants, and to avoid suffering. This is true, and we all know it. But we’ve got to be willing to go through a little pain, because pain purifies.

This life of mine has had so much pain in it, I can’t begin to tell you. And it still goes on and on and on, because it says that before you go through the experience you’re paying the pain for yourself, and then afterwards, you’re paying it for others who come to you, that you may help them to arise.

So you say, “Well, it seems like a hopeless situation. There’s nothing but pain.” But we all know that isn’t true because there is also joy, there is also happiness, there is also peace. There’s also many wonderful, beautiful things, even in the human sense. But we pay that price of pain as long as we are in duality.

But when we rise above it, when we go into the mountain of our own beings and seek only the Lord who resides in all of His Glory there, then the reward that comes to you far exceeds the pain that you go through. And because you realize what suffering humanity is going through, you bear that pain with great joy and you wouldn’t have it otherwise, because you have been over the path yourself and you know what a struggle they’re going through.

I was telling somebody the other day that when I went through this tremendous experience in India, at the hands of Swami Ramdas, he gave me absolutely no quarter! Whenever I went to him for human understanding, for love, for compassion, for sympathy when I was going through this tremendous experience, he would push me away and say, “Why do you need it?” I was out there on my own totally, and believe me it was some battle I had to go through.

I haven’t done that with those that have come to me. Perhaps I do them a disservice. I don’t know. But having gone through it myself, remembering the tremendous need for even a shred of human understanding and compassion, and not getting it, I can’t help but sympathize with them and relate to what they’re going through. So I take them in my arms, and I wait on them, and I make everything as comfortable as possible. If I can’t do it myself, I try to have somebody else do it for me. And I see to it that they have some little comfort on the way. And still, they will get there, I’m sure of it. But I wasn’t granted any such privilege. Perhaps it was because I had a special mission to fulfill, which God has told me, which the saints have verified.

But anyway, it was tough. But it is not nearly as tough as keeping on, never knowing who you really are, always packing the burden of making decisions.

That’s another way that the people in the marketplace keep idle. There are some people who are so indecisive—”Shall I do this? Shall I do that? Shall I do some other thing?”—that they never are doing anything. They are at a total standstill. They’re helpless, right smack in the middle, and this is not according to God’s plan.

But don’t forget, if you want to be one of those who, as it says here, “the chosen one,” the one to be called, then regardless of whether you’re first, last or in between, do not regret what God has asked of you, but get busy! Get busy and work because even in the last few moments of an individual’s life, if their consciousness changes then and they reach out for God, that is progress. And He will not refuse them.

But don’t wait until the last minute. Do not wait until the winter of your life, because then it describes in St. Matthew’s, I think it’s Chapter 24 or 25, what happens if you wait until too late, because you have a much tougher time going through it when you’re older than you would if you were younger. And think of all of the years that you wasted, where you could be a true child of God, where you could be an enlightened soul, where you could be spreading God’s word and doing His work throughout the world, and just look at the state of the world and know whether or not you are needed.

And the world is never going to change, as I have said a thousand times now, until we as individuals change, because the world is what we make it. Every thought, every word, every action that goes out, carries with it its own vibration and returns to us in kind. And finally, because we have sent so much against God’s nature, He rises up. He rebels. And there are all sorts of tremendous catastrophes, and we’re seeing them all around us today. And now we don’t like it very well, and we are afraid.

But I ask you to get busy, to really go within your own temple, within the sanctuary of your own soul, and put your full attention upon Him. Give yourself to Him with everything you have—not to anybody, but to God. If you must give it to an individual, give it to God in that person because it is said that everybody needs, in the beginning, a bridge between himself and the Infinite because man cannot cognize God as Pure Spirit.

I had a very interesting thing happen to me the other night. I’ve spoken about this great soul in New York before. Her name is Freda Stanis[?], and she is my age. And she’s just a tremendous soul. She meditates every morning and every night, she does her Kriya every morning and every night, she tries to do whatever good she can at her age, and she is really fantastic. But every now and then, she’ll call me. And in spite of the fact that she has had tremendous experiences—she’s come face-to-face with not only the everythingness of God, but the nothingness of God—she calls me up and she wants to know why she hasn’t found God yet.

So the other night, she was very disturbed. She had been meditating and she had gone into this place where there was total void, beyond duality. She couldn’t see any of her friends, she couldn’t see the world, she couldn’t see anything, and she was very distressed when she called: Why couldn’t she find God?

So I explained to her that she had reached the ultimate, the stillness of God, before creation, and that if she wished, then she came back—obviously she did—and she was God’s child and His servant, still searching for Him all the time. And I explained to her, about fifteen or twenty minutes. (I had someone else there) Finally she was satisfied. “I’m so glad you were able to help me with this. I was really concerned. I didn’t like that up there. I was all by myself,” she said.

And I know what she means, because I once had that same experience, and I went in there. But then, as I was coming out and I felt myself “The One,” all over the universe, and I looked around me and I thought, “Oh my Lord,” (speaking of myself, of course), “what have I done? And what a tremendous price I have to pay! And I am responsible for all of this,” in this state. And again, I said, “Oh Lord, let me again be Thy child and Thy servant.”

It’s like the river that runs to the ocean and merges with it, but still it continues to be the river running toward the ocean. And this is the way it will be as long as there are rivers and oceans, you see, and as long as there are human beings. We run to God. We become one with Him. We realize that we always were, we are, and we always will be just The One, but we like the play ourselves. And then we scream to the high heavens because the play hurt us a little bit. You know, we didn’t get all the candy and the ice cream and the yachts and the cars, and all of the good food and the lovely clothes, and you name it. You can go on and on and on. We still like to be here, and even after you have your God-realization.

You will remember the story in the “Autobiography of a Yogi,” where it told about Lahiri Mahasaya being told by the Infinite that it was time for him to leave the body, and he mentioned this to a few disciples. And even his body quivered because there is that little fear of separation, no matter how great you are, of leaving the body and going into the Infinite. I hope I have mastered this. I don’t feel any fear whatsoever. And whatever God wants is great with me because I’ve already died. I’ve been through that scene, so it doesn’t hold any fear for me. And I know that there is only life.

And I am told that my ethereal body is being prepared now, and that this is why the physical body is so weak. So, all of the substance is going into the power that I’m putting forth from this body in order to help you to attain your goal in a hurry. And I would suggest that you do, believe me. But it’s a tremendous thing when you sit and watch this play of God’s, and to realize that everything that goes on is all He, all He.

I was reading in a book that had been published recently about, and it was taken literally, about a passage in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna is urging Arjuna to go out on the battlefield and kill his dear relatives. And then, in the same book, there was an acknowledgement of the truth that every scripture the world over is a parable, and it has to do with killing all of the sense tendencies within yourself. Now, here are two contradictory statements.

Now, whatever it is within you, manifests itself, vibrates without, and becomes history. This is true. But we take it literally, because we have been taught this way. We take the scriptures literally, and we strive and we strive and we strive, waiting for the promise. But that promise will never come. The payment will never come either for the one who starts to work in the morning or the one who starts to work at the last until the effort is made. The workers agreed to work. They agreed to work for a certain stipend, and regardless of when they started, that’s what they got. They got what they had agreed to. So we must remember that.

I wish that I could stimulate you. I wish I could inspire you when I stand up here. I try my best to get you to really go to work and find out who and what you are in God; to feel the peace, the bliss of His everlasting presence; to feel the love of God, not the human love, pour out of you and pour into you. It is tremendous. Regardless of what you go through, still you have this feeling, and you can call upon it any moment you want to.

You will never realize, or know what life is all about, or realize who and what you are until you make that effort. And you will continue to be reborn, which you probably would like to do because you like to be in this play lifetime after lifetime, and go through suffering after suffering, and with a little bit of pleasure and a little bit of this and that and the other thing. And that is your reward. And you still don’t know what life is all about.

You have to rise above duality. You have to arise beyond the pair of opposites if you’re going to really make the grade. And then, when you do, you walk like a king of the Spirit, not of the human world but a king of the Spirit. And you feel God’s power. You feel His presence. You feel the wonder, the beauty, the bliss that we are promised. That is the fulfillment of the promise. But regardless—and this is the truth I tell you regardless of what any master has ever written or said—as long as you are in the world of duality, you’re going to meet with the pairs of opposites. Nobody escapes it unless he goes to the Himalayas, perhaps, and sits on a stone, and has somebody bring him his bread and his milk. And even then, he has to deal with the elements.

The world is God. You cannot escape from God. You can’t say He’s here, but He’s not there. You can’t separate God from Himself because otherwise He wouldn’t be omnipresent, which means His is the only Presence. You cannot say, “My intelligence and God’s knowledge,” because everything is God. He is omniscient. It is only His power, so you don’t have any power of your own, as separated from His. There is just God every place. So if you want to go from here to there, you are still in God. And wherever you go, you take yourself with you in whatever state of development you are in.

And the thing to do is to stand right where you are, to measure up fully, to face yourself and to gradually realize that the only way out, the only way that’s going to bring you true fulfillment, peace and happiness is to fix your full attention upon God, surrender yourself to Him totally, accept every circumstance which comes to your life as a blessing, and progress to that moment when you can stand straight and tall and say, “I AM THAT I AM,” and know it with everything that is in you, and yet walk through the world, walk the streets of life, without anyone else knowing who and what you are in the Spirit. Few there are who recognize a saint.

I was standing next to a woman at a counter in Frederick and Nelson’s yesterday, in the lingerie section. And she was trying to return, (I don’t know what they call them) a pad, I guess, that’s used because she had had—What is it when you have a breast removed? Mastectomy? Yeah. Anyway, I stood next to this woman, and they were giving her a lot of trouble. But it had been imperfect. She’d been on a trip out of the country and had had a lot of difficulty.

Well, finally they had a conference, I guess, about all of this, the heads of Frederick and Nelson’s, and finally agreed to give her a credit, which was over $100. After all, none of us can throw away hundreds of dollars, you know, like that. But as I stood next to this woman, her face was so brilliant with light. And here she’d been through all of this, obviously, and she was having a tough time even getting help for her physical body in this sense. And the vibration I got from her was so great in God that I wanted to go and put my arms around her and say, “Oh, how tremendous you are in God! I just love you! I feel your light. I feel your presence.”

I don’t know what she would have thought or what she would have done, but that was what I wanted to do because I met a great soul. And the light shone in her eyes, and her whole face was lit up, and regardless of what she had been through in the physical sense, I knew beyond any question of a doubt that here was a soul that was all the way with God. She was tremendous!

And that’s the thing that counts, because if you walk with God you have peace, you have bliss, you have contentment, you have beauty. It all flows together in one beautiful pattern.

So, work that you might be one of those that are chosen. Don’t be one of those that are left behind, because remember that even though you will never be left behind because all is God and you are part of Him, that you don’t want to subject yourself to these things, incarnation after incarnation. But you want to rise up. You want to lift your eyes to the hills. You want to go up into the mountain of your own being. You want your heart to open, to expand, to include all of God every place, all of humanity, and then be His shining, beautiful, wonderful instrument. And then, and then alone, will there be peace on earth, goodwill toward all men.

Now let us pray. O Heavenly Father… [Mother leads the congregation in the Closing Prayer]